


A Warm Place With No Memory

by dreamofhorses



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Barebacking, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Violence, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Porn with Feelings, Smoking, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2019-11-23 12:40:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18152006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamofhorses/pseuds/dreamofhorses
Summary: Prison AU: on Armie's first day of prison he is singled out for special attention from a prison boss we'll all find a little familiar.Please note this won't be particularly dark as prison AUs go, I'm not going to get into issues of violence or coercion. It just seemed like an interesting backdrop to try out the boys' story.





	1. Chapter 1

The ride in the prison transport seems to take place in blinks.  _ Blink _ . Armie boards the cramped, pre-climate-control-era bus in his orange jumpsuit. The only piece of luck seems to be that it’s a slow day and he’s able to get a seat to himself.  _ Blink _ . The bus hits a particularly large rock and the jolt makes Armie’s shackles rattle. Up until then he’d almost been able to forget they were there.  _ Blink _ . The outdated brakes whine as the bus pulls into the prison yard, metal gate clanging shut behind them, and then it seems like there’s no silence for an hour. A guard boards the bus, screams at the handful of prisoners to  _ line up, single file, inside, now! No dawdling! _ Once inside Armie’s led through a series of barred doors, each banging differently, buzzers shrieking before he can pass through, then his shackles and prison jumpsuit are removed as he’s herded toward a shower that blasts him with a car-wash-strength spray. He keeps his eyes down, as he’s been told to, and feels relieved when he can exit the damp chilly room into an adjacent processing chamber. 

 

The relief is demolished in the next moment as he sees those ahead of him in line handed a small pile of clothing that will be their entire closet for the next 18 months. He draws a breath and is alarmed to find it’s shaky, uncertain. When he reaches for his clothing pile his hand shakes. A guard sees, and snickers. “Nervous, boy?” he asks, staring straight at Armie so there’s no mistaking who he’s talking to. There are some chuckles from elsewhere in the room and although he fights it so hard he feels sick to his stomach, Armie blushes.  _ Fuck _ , he thinks to himself. Everything he read, everyone he talked to said  _ just don’t show weakness. These people will pounce on any cracks you show them. _

 

“Awww, look how pretty he is when he blushes!” comes a shout from down the line. There are chuckles, back slaps, and the guards let it continue for a few seconds before calling for order and leading the prisoners onto the cell block. 

 

On the cell block the chaos resumes. Everyone’s expecting the new prisoners, and from some of the calls and greetings it seems that Armie’s tormentors are repeat offenders; they’ve been here before and seem to already know almost everyone on the block.  _ Great _ , Armie thinks.  _ Not much good being 6’5” if people already know you’re weak and vulnerable. After all there’s about 75 of them and one of me. _ He’s pushed roughly into a cell, the door slamming shut behind him and almost catching his prison uniform in the latch. Not that the guards would care.

 

The other man in the cell has his back to Armie when he enters. The walls are covered in pictures of women, mostly in dance poses, and there’s a commissary radio in the corner playing tinny dance music. At the sound of the door clanging shut the man whirls around and his eyes light up at the sight of Armie.

 

“Ooooh,  _ I _ get the pretty boy in my cell? Lucky me!” He rubs his hands together in mock anticipation. “I must have been a very good boy this year.” He approaches Armie, runs a finger down Armie’s bicep, walks around Armie in a slow circle until Armie feels like he’s at a livestock auction. “It’s a shame they trimmed all your lovely blond hair,  _ Armand _ . It looked so good in all those newspaper articles I read about you.”

Armie’s at least six inches taller than this guy, and almost twice as wide, but he knows that wouldn’t matter. If this guy already knows who he is, has connections to get saucy photos and newspapers, then he probably knows six guys who would hold Armie down while this guy did what he wanted. The man’s lips are remarkably full and Armie hopes that’s natural instead of from one too many fights, maybe with pretty boys who wouldn’t do what they’re told.

 

“I’m Ansel,” the man croons, extending a hand for a handshake, and the absurdity of the formal gesture makes Armie double over in laughter. “I’m sorry, are you  _ laughing _ at me?”

 

The steel underlying Ansel’s tone makes Armie straighten up, cut off his giggles immediately.

 

“I’m-I’m sorry. It just seemed so strange, shaking hands in a place like,” Armie gestures around them helplessly.

 

“You’re sorry, hmmm? I don’t believe you. I don’t think you’re sorry yet. But I think you will be, once I show you how.” Ansel has dropped the nice-guy act, dropped his hand and stepped into Armie’s personal space until their chests touch. Ansel grabs Armie’s biceps in his hands and starts to squeeze.

 

“Elgort! Lay off the fresh meat!” a guard barks from the hallway.

 

“Awww, I’m just having a bit of fun, Ramsey, come on. He knows I’m just playing,” Ansel calls out lightly. Armie does not for one moment believe Ansel is just playing.

 

“Well stop playing. Cell change. Lil Timmy’s orders.” Behind Armie, there is the sound of a key in the lock.

 

“What?? Seriously? I never get any nice things.” Ansel’s full lips droop in a pout.

 

“You know Lil Timmy’s word is the law,” the burly guard mutters, taking Armie’s elbow and leading him back out onto the cell block.

 

Instantly Armie’s mind flashes on what kind of guy would be giving orders to guards and creeps like Ansel. If Armie already had a reputation as a scared pretty boy, he’d probably been singled out by some assertive ringleader. Probably a huge guy, used to throwing his weight around, who won’t even be put off by Armie’s size much less his...basic humanity. Someone with enough money to pay a guard here and there not to see a bruise or a black eye. Lil Timmy. They never nickname a guy “Lil” unless he’s  _ huuuuge _ . Great.

 

As they approach his new cell Armie can see another inmate being hustled out of it, quickly, in a state of undress, hastily juggling his possessions in his arms as the guard beside him murmurs almost apologetically, “Sorry, Gioello, you know how it goes when he wants something. Don’t wanna piss him off again, last time two guards went to the infirmary and it was hell to explain in the paperwork.”

 

_ Just my fucking luck _ , Armie thinks.  _ This guy probably put me in a cell with one of his deputies to soften me up on my first night. Fucking perfect. _

 

Armie actually squeezes his eyes shut while he’s shoved into this new cell but has to open them quickly to regain his balance and avoid dropping the whole of his worldly possessions onto the carpet.

 

_ Wait. The  _ **_carpet_ ** _? _

 

Armie blinks twice, expecting the harsh light of his previous cell but finding the light in this room softer, indirect. While his eyes adjust he wiggles his toes on the, yes, carpet that is underfoot. The lighting comes from two table lamps with stained glass shades, one on each of two desks which sit in opposite corners. The cell is about twice as large as the one he would have shared with Ansel, and instead of bunk beds there’s a bed against each wall, giving some semblance of personal space. There’s music drifting faintly from one corner. Armie cranes his head. Instead of the commissary radio Ansel had purchased, it’s a record player. John Coltrane’s “Naima” wafts from it softly. The only art on the walls is a giant framed photo of a landscape. Somewhere warm, with fruit trees. Italy, perhaps?

 

At one of the desks a figure is hunched over, writing something on a sheet of paper. The first thing Armie notices is the shine of the desk light on his curls. Like the carpet, this seems odd to Armie but he’s not yet acclimated enough to prison life to know why, until it hits him that this guy doesn’t have a buzz cut. Even the guards he’s seen today have buzz cuts, and yet. Not only does this guy not have one. He’s got a head of curls like a waterfall carved in mahogany. When he sits up something glints in his hand. A fountain pen. 

 

_ Oh, even better. The good-cop bad-cop routine. Whoever this guy is will soften me up, make me think if I do what Lil Timmy wants, I can have things like this. Then when I find out what Lil Timmy wants from me, it won’t seem like such a good bargain anymore. _

 

Armie is careful this time not to chuckle, shake, even move into the room without being told to. The man at the desk stands up, straightens the multicolored sweater he’s wearing over his prison uniform to protect from the chill. He approaches Armie with his head cocked to one side, curls brushing his shoulder, and darts his tongue out to run it once around the perfect curves of his lips.

 

_ I’d like to do that sometime. _ The thought flies into Armie’s head and takes him completely by surprise, adding one more thing to the list of emotions he’s shoving down by trying to remain passive right now.  _ The last thing you need is to go getting a crush on one of this Lil Timmy guy’s right hand men. You’d probably get yourself chopped into pieces and flushed down a prison toilet for that, and no one would even notice you were gone. _

 

The man circles Armie once, stopping in front of him again to tip his head up and make eye contact for the first time. The man’s green eyes light up when he meets Armie’s gaze, like lightning striking a pine tree, and Armie feels his eyes do the same at their connection.  _ Fuck, well, this guy knows, anyway. Maybe he’ll keep it to himself, not tell his boss that five minutes after he met me he could tell I wanted to fuck his brains out. _

 

The man extends a hand to Armie and this time he knows better than to do anything but grasp it firmly. The man’s hand is cool to the touch but with a solid warmth beneath that Armie finds almost...soothing? It’s the first thing that’s felt anywhere near soft since Armie came through these prison doors.

 

Then he speaks, and it hits Armie like an echo because he can’t even process the words at first, just the tone, the low register that speaks of forbidden cigarettes, uncontrollable giggles, a lifetime of being bad at karaoke. Then the words bounce back to him and he focuses on their meaning. And this time he actually does drop his clothes, his toothbrush, everything he owns in the world onto the expensive Persian rug at his feet.

 

“I’m Lil Timmy. But you, and only you, can call me Timothée.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Hey Swardstrom,” Timmy barks from beside Armie. “He’s with me, OK? Be nice. We don’t want another day like Bloody Sunday, now do we?”_
> 
> Armie's first day on the inside. Warning for a little mild violence (a punch and a slap) and some mild menacing, but mostly in the interest of hurt/comfort. Be forewarned that this chapter is setting us up for a chapter of pure smut next. They deserve it.

Armie stands stock-still in the center of the room, struck dumb by lust or terror, probably some combination of the two, until a gentle pressure on his palms tells him Timothée has gathered up all his belongings, stacked them carefully by size, and laid them back in Armie’s hands.

 

“That’s your side,” Timothée inclines his head towards the unused bed and desk. “I’ll just finish up this letter while you get settled in.”

 

It takes a full ten seconds for Armie to get the confidence to move over to the bed, start to put his things in the dresser ( _ dresser? Ansel’s room didn’t have a dresser _ ), and sit tentatively on the mattress to see how soft it is. Timothée doesn’t  _ seem _ to make a move toward him, certainly not to try and teach him a lesson or break him in, or any of the other terms Armie’s heard in prison movies that probably don’t even really apply here. An hour ago he was praying some pouty-lipped pretty boy wasn’t about to bash his head into the wall and now he’s wondering if his mattress will be soft enough. Armie shakes his head, lets out a little chuckle despite himself.

 

“Well, that’s more like it,” murmurs Timothée from his desk, capping his pen and laying aside his letter. He spins in his chair to meet Armie’s eyes. “You sound at least a little relaxed. Probably more than you thought you’d be right now, eh?” He follows Armie’s wandering gaze to the record player, mistakes his confusion for preference. “Oh, do you like Coltrane? I can change it, but I warn you my collection’s a little heavy on classic jazz and Beyonce. If you want anything else you might be out of luck.”

 

“No, no, Timothée, the music’s fine, I just...I mean, all of this is lovely and way, way more than I was expecting, and I’m grateful to you already. I’m just...god, I don’t want to sound unappreciative, but why me? For all this? You’re clearly--someone, someone big, and I don’t get why you brought me here.”

 

“I think we may be here for some of the same reasons, Armand.” Timothée stares at his feet while he speaks, and even though he’s only been in the room a few minutes Armie can tell this is very out of character.

 

_ The same reasons?  _ It’s enough to make Armie chuckle again, but he senses the moment is delicate and restrains himself.  _ Does he even know why I’m here? That I was trying to kiss a guy I’d just met outside a club when some drunk asshole stumbled out, called us names, threw a punch? That when I tried to fight him off he pulled a knife, but it was late and dark and sometimes I forget how big I am, and when everything settled the knife was in his gut and not mine? That my family has all the money in the world but when they found out why I’d done what I’d done they cut me off, left me with an overworked public defender who told me pleading guilty to attempted manslaughter was my best bet? There’s no way a guy as tough as Timothée got here by a bunch of accidents like that. _

 

But the attempt at connection is enough and Armie murmurs, “please, call me Armie.”

 

“In that case, call me Timmy. Hell, only my family does that, so it’s just you and the Chalamets. Don’t get a big head about it though, huh?” Timmy looks up, shakes his curls out of his eyes, reaches one foot across the narrow space to nudge Armie’s foot with his own.

 

_ The Chalamets. That’s who this kid is. _ Armie remembers it now, a big story a couple of years ago. A wealthy newspaper publisher had almost died when the brakes on his car were tampered with, and the country had been shocked when the investigation led back to Timothée Chalamet, a friend of the publisher’s college-age son. Chalamet had further surprised observers by immediately admitting his actions and taking a plea deal for attempted murder, but throughout the ordeal he’d refused to explain himself or give any interviews at all. 

 

“You were in love with him,” Armie deduces, and then breaks out in a cold sweat when he realizes he’s spoken this aloud. Maybe you’re not supposed to say  _ love _ in a place like this. But Timmy just nods.

 

“His father would have disowned him, ended up disowning him anyway. He would have gotten everything in the will if it had worked, and we’d be together in the Bahamas instead of--” Timmy gestures to the confined space around them. “I haven’t told anyone else in here my reasons,” Timmy says, keeping his voice understandably low, “but I know your case. I followed it in the--”   
  


“Papers?” Armie interjects, knowing that’s how most prisoners here would know of him.

 

Timmy rolls his eyes. “Does it look like 1953 in here?” He cocks his head toward the corner of his desk where a small cell phone is resting in a charger. “It’s not the newest model there is, but that’s fine with me. The size makes it easier to hide anyhow. If we get along maybe you can call your momma on it in a few days.”

 

“I can think of some other people I’d rather talk to.” Armie chuckles bitterly. “But thanks. Really. I--I didn’t expect to have a friend here so soon but I really appreciate it.”

 

“Don’t mention it.” Timmy stands, stretches his arms behind him. “I mean that. Tomorrow when we’re out there,” he gestures to the rest of the cell block past their barred door, “this conversation never happened, got it? It’s a different world out there, you’ll see.”

 

At that thought, Armie’s heart leaps back into his throat. Timmy sees, moves toward Armie, places a hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right, I’ll take care of you, just...follow my lead. And don’t tell anyone what we say in here. All right?” He extends his hand, and when Armie clasps it the warmth of Timmy’s skin shoots through him like a lit fuse. “Now get some sleep. You’ll need it for tomorrow.” Timmy turns out the desk lamp, and after some brief shuffling noises from Timmy’s side of the room, Armie is left alone in the dark with his thoughts.

 

*****

 

When they leave the cell for breakfast the next morning it becomes clear what Timmy means by “a different world”. A blaring alarm wakes Armie at what feels like dawn. He instantly feels like he’s been asleep for years and hasn’t really slept at all. Timmy bounds off the bed on the opposite side of the room, changing out his shirt for a fresh one from a pile folded under the bed. Armie tries not to watch the curve of Timmy’s spine as he bends, tries not to admire how smoothly and elegantly his hands move as they button the shirt and cuff its sleeves. And when Armie himself goes to change, does he imagine that he feels eyes on his body too? Each time he looks at Timmy, Timmy seems engrossed in organizing a pile of papers on his desk that Armie could have sworn was already in perfect order the night before.

 

A guard comes to their cell door not three minutes later, blowing a whistle sharply for them to get in line. Timmy steps behind Armie, and as Armie takes his first steps through the door onto the cell block he feels the gentlest brush of Timmy’s hand against his own. 

 

When he turns to thank Timmy for the gesture, they have already stepped past the cell door, and he doesn’t even recognize Timmy’s eyes when their gazes meet. Timmy’s face is as closed as any of the barred doors around them and his eyes are cold, dead, almost  _ bored. _ Armie opens his mouth to speak but is cut off by the guard snapping, “Eyes front, Hammer! If you run into one of these bars and break your pretty nose you can bet we’re not taking the blame for it!” But when Timmy clears his throat behind Armie, the guard’s tone softens. “Cafeteria’s up ahead to your right, Hammer.”

 

Armie walks into the room first and because of his height Timmy is invisible behind him. At his entrance the chatter in the room falls silent immediately. Ansel is seated at a table to Armie’s right, and looks him up and down appraisingly when he enters. Once Ansel is sure he’s caught Armie’s eye he licks his lips once, slowly, flicking his tongue at Armie suggestively. 

 

As soon as Timmy steps out from behind Armie, Ansel tucks his tongue back into his mouth and begins studiously buttering the already-buttered toast on his plate. The cafeteria conversation reignites quickly, brightly, urgently. Timmy steps in front of Armie, inclining his head to show Armie should follow him, and several dozen eyes that had been appraising Armie openly are now suddenly aimed at feet, coffee mugs, bowls of oatmeal. Timmy leads them to a table in the rear corner of the room, where three other inmates are waiting. Armie recognizes the man who was ushered out of Timmy’s cell so abruptly the night before, and expects some tension from him. He’s relieved when all three men greet them both with broad smiles.

 

“These are the guys whose names you want to know.” Timmy says. His voice holds no affection but the men glow at the praise nonetheless. “Will, Stephane, Giullian,” Timmy points to them in turn, the last name belonging to his former cellmate. There is some shuffling so that Timmy and Armie can sit down, and Will springs up to grab trays of toast, oatmeal, and dry scrambled eggs for their morning meal. When he returns Armie smiles at him gratefully. He still has to concentrate so his hands don’t shake as he eats, but the warmth of Timmy’s friends is more than he had dared to expect, and he tries to show his appreciation by making small talk and giving Will a piece of toast he’s too nervous to eat.

 

Either the breakfast was tasteless or Armie was too nervous to notice its flavors. Probably some of both. He eats in silence, tiny bites, and doesn’t even finish half of what’s on his plate. Timmy talks for almost the entire meal, checking in with each of his friends in turn. First he and Stephane have a lengthy conversation about some contraband cell phones. Stephane appears to be having trouble collecting some money Timmy is owed for them, but he assures Timmy he’s taking care of it. Next Will tells Timmy that the guards have accepted all but one of the work assignments Timmy “suggested” he and his friends receive for the coming week. It appears Officer Karamanos, a determined brunette with deceptively kind eyes, has nixed Will’s request to work in the greenhouse alongside Timmy the following week. 

 

“I’ll talk to her.” Timmy murmurs, staring at his hands in mock innocence. Only Armie notices that Timmy is drawing patterns on the table with one thumb, circling the same area over and over tensely. Before Armie can even realize what he’s doing, and what a potentially  _ very bad idea _ it is, he drops his hand so it rests on the bench between Timmy and himself, and stretches out his pinky finger to run it in a soothing motion along the seam of Timmy’s prison trousers.

 

At least he intends the motion to be soothing. It turns out to be exothermic. He swears he can feel Timmy’s heartbeat, through the thick canvas, on a part of his body where you can’t even find a pulse. Timmy looks over at him, the studied nonchalance of his gaze all morning suddenly burned away. In that moment Armie sees what would make someone plot murder to be with this man. Timmy blinks twice, sucks his lower lip between his teeth, and then the curtain falls again as clearly and certainly as the clanging barred doors Armie faintly hears behind them.

 

Timmy turns to Giullian. “G? How’s the game looking?” Armie gathers that an upcoming prison softball game will be celebrating the return of warmer weather, and Giullian has been tasked with making sure Timmy and all his friends are on the same team. He assures Timmy things are looking good, and after dispersing perhaps one more carton of contraband cigarettes he expects things will go off without a hitch.

 

Just as this roundup is finished a guard’s whistle blows and everyone files to the front of the room to dispose of their trash. A line forms against one wall, and this time Timmy muscles ahead of Armie. “Exercise yard,” he hisses under his breath. “Let me go first this time.”

 

The yard is a dingy oval of dead grass surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. An ill-tended track runs along the perimeter; the inmates file onto it and begin trudging a listless circle. Timmy and his friends trail along the end of the line until they stop in front of a run-down set of bleachers, where they break away from the group and settle in a rough circle. Armie keeps walking, using his long stride to try and catch up with the other inmates, but when he completes a lap and passes the bleachers again Timmy hisses at him loudly, catches his eye, motions for Armie to join them. Timmy scoots over to make room for Armie between himself and Stephane, and Armie tries not to notice that the entire length of Timmy’s thigh presses against his in the tight space.

 

Timmy’s rolling a cigarette, thumb flying over the edge of the paper, bringing it to his mouth and darting out his tongue so fast Armie catches himself staring at Timmy’s mouth in hopes of another glimpse. Giullian snickers from the next bleacher and Armie clears his throat, reaches down to re-tie his perfectly tied canvas sneakers. When he looks up Timmy is extending the cigarette to him. The iron shades still shield Timmy’s eyes, but when he hands Armie the cigarette their thumbs brush together, and Timmy grasps Armie’s hand to steady it as he produces a lighter from his pocket and leans over to light Armie’s cigarette. The nicotine calms Armie’s nerves, but as Ansel passes them on his walk around the track he shoots Armie a poisoned glare that negates any sense of calm he’d started to feel.

 

A broad-shouldered guard with a white crew cut approaches. “Making friends already, Hammer?” His tone is pleasant but Armie’s afraid it’s a ruse to gain his trust. “Didn’t take you much time at all. Usually Lil Timmy lets someone else break in the ones he likes for him before he takes over.”   
  


Armie doesn’t even want to know what this man is talking about. “Hey Swardstrom,” Timmy barks from beside Armie. “He’s with me, OK? Be nice. We don’t want another day like Bloody Sunday, now do we?”

 

“Lighten up, I’ll leave him be. Your friends are my friends, you know that. But right now I’ve gotta borrow him. He’s gonna be working the laundry with Ansel and I’ve gotta show him the ropes.”

 

“Ansel? The laundry?” Timmy shoots Will a dark glance. “He’s supposed to be working the greenhouse with me.”

 

“Talk to Karamanos, kid. I’m just following orders.” Swardstrom actually looks apologetic, and Armie takes one last drag on his cigarette before passing it to Timmy to finish.

 

He follows Swardstrom to the basement, where thudding machines are already hard at work laundering sheets and blankets. Swardstrom points out the detergent, shows Armie where to put clean laundry into giant bins on a conveyor belt that go out to be sorted. When Ansel comes downstairs a few moments later, eyes bright from the outdoor exertion, Swardstrom claps him companionably on the shoulder and heads upstairs, leaving Armie and Ansel alone in the dimly lit cinderblock room.

 

Ansel starts to speak, and Armie has to lean in to hear him over the noise. “I said, you probably think you’re better than us. Got protection now. Caught Lil Timmy’s eye. Huh?” Ansel pulls back, stares Armie in the eye, doesn’t seem bothered that he has to look up to do so. “Do you think you’re better than us, Hammer?” And Ansel pulls back one fist and punches Armie squarely in the stomach.

 

It catches Armie off guard. But he can’t say he’s never been in a fight before. He cocks his right elbow back, setting up for a nice right hook--and finds he can’t pull his arm forward. Someone behind him, someone he can’t see and didn’t hear over the din of the laundry, is holding his arm back, and before Armie knows it someone else has grabbed his left arm, and the weight of both men presses him to the floor, on his knees, in front of Ansel.

 

“I’m here to tell you something, Armand.” Ansel grins, rubs his palms together, cracks his knuckles. Then, of all things, he reaches down and grabs Armie’s chin, tips his head up so he’s forced to meet Ansel’s eyes. “I was as dumb as you once. Listened to Lil Timmy. Believed him.” Ansel leans forward, whispers in Armie’s ear. “I used to sleep in the very bed you’re sleeping in now.” Ansel straightens up, releases Armie’s chin, and slaps him once, hard, across the cheek.

When he gets tired of you you’ll get stuck down here too. Down here there’s no law. No guards. And no Lil Timmy to save you.” Ansel nods to his cronies, who yank Armie roughly to a standing position so his torso is back at the height of Ansel’s fists, but this time with no way to fight back.

 

Then suddenly Armie feels a draft of cold air. His arms fall free at his sides.

 

From behind him he hears a voice: “Don’t be so sure about that, Ansel.”

 

He’d know the voice anywhere even if it hadn’t been the only friendly one he’d heard since he arrived.  _ Timmy _ . Armie dares to turn his head, sees that Timmy and his entire gang have propped open the basement door to release the oppressive heat and are staring down Ansel’s goons. “Don’t make me angry again, Ansel. Please.” There is no note of actual pleading in the word. “I would really, really hate to have to ask Will to remind you of your place again.”

 

When Armie looks back at Ansel, Ansel is actually shaking. His voice trembles when he says, “Nah, Lil Timmy, we’re good. It’s all good. We were just--just having fun, you know. Scaring him a little, first day fun, but we were never gonna  _ do _ anything about it. No, no hard feelings? All right?” Ansel extends a hand to Timmy.

 

Timmy steps forward just enough to move Armie behind him for protection. He takes one look at Ansel’s palm and spits on it. “I’ll be the judge of that. Come on, Armie.” His circle of friends closes around Armie, swaddling him in a protective circle as they ascend the stairs onto the cell block.

 

Once they reach the hallway Timmy’s friends fall off one by one until Timmy and Armie are alone, heading toward their cell. They see Officer Swardstrom at the base of a staircase and Timmy glares at him. “Ansel. In the basement. Really, Brian, you should know better by now. I had to do your job for you or else they were gonna put him in the infirmary. He’s gonna rest up in our cell till tomorrow and I expect you and Karamanos to put him with me for work duty from now on. Got it?”

 

“Yes, yeah, Lil Timmy. Got it. I’m so sorry, we’re just swamped with the new arrivals yesterday and the game coming up and--”

 

Timmy cuts Swardstrom off. “Just don’t let it happen again, Brian. I like to appreciate you. I don’t like to be disappointed.” He walks off, touching Armie’s elbow lightly to steer him toward their hallway. Even as shaken up as he is Armie can’t help noticing that the touch rekindles the earlier spark he was starting to think he imagined.

 

When they reach their cell and close the door, Swardstrom comes along a few minutes later to lock them in. “Hey, can you skip this corner in your patrol for the next couple of hours, Brian? Just give him a little while to calm down?” Swardstrom nods, gives Armie a look that almost passes for a smile. Timmy crosses to the record player, puts on some record that sounds like a rainy day smells, looks up to see Armie still standing puzzled and shaken in the middle of the room. When he meets Armie’s eyes his gaze is open again, unguarded, and Armie feels warm for the first time since he arrived. Timmy crosses to Armie, tentatively places his hands on Armie’s biceps.

 

“Is this all right?” Timmy asks, then chuckles lightly when Armie nods so hard he almost knocks his forehead into Timmy’s. “Good. Come lie down, you’ll feel better.” He guides Armie slowly to Armie’s bed, watches as Armie settles onto the mattress. Armie hears Timmy shuffling papers on his side of the room, hears him turn the record over.

 

“Hey,” Armie’s voice is so hoarse and quiet it surprises even him. Only then does he realize how little he’s been talking since he arrived. “Sit for a second?” Armie’s eyes are closed but he pats the mattress beside him, smiles a little when he feels it dip under Timmy’s weight. He can  _ smell _ Timmy, and he doesn’t even know or care how he can pick out Timmy’s smell when every other man in the prison uses the same soap, same detergent, wears the same fabric; it only matters that he  _ can _ pick out the smell.

 

He feels a tingle on the back of his hand, realizes Timmy is drawing his elegant fingers along his veins, tickling a little when he reaches Armie’s knuckles. “Hey, Timmy? Thank you for--everything. Today.” Now that his eyes are closed and Timmy is touching him, Armie can’t seem to stop talking. “If anything I’m more fucking terrified of you now, I have no idea what Bloody Sunday is or how Will shows people their place but I’m just glad somehow I’m lucky enough to have you on my side.”

 

The mattress shifts again and Armie realizes Timmy has stretched out beside him on what van generously be called a full-size bed. Armie laughs. Timmy laughs. Armie rolls to one side to make more room, keeping his eyes closed the whole time. Part of him is afraid if he opens his eyes he’ll be back in the hallway, yesterday afternoon, before he’d ever met Timmy, and he’ll have to go through this all alone. There’s even a tiny part of him that’s afraid of opening his eyes and being back in his life on the outside, before any of this, a life that somehow seems empty now that he’s had a day with Timmy in it.

 

“One thing,” Timmy’s voice, thick and drowsy, is right beside Armie, so close that he jumps at the feel of Timmy’s breath on his neck. “I’m not on your side. I’m by your side.” He rolls closer to Armie so they’re pressed together from head to toe.

 

When Timmy throws his arm across Armie’s waist and starts gently snoring, Armie too drifts off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of jazz out there that sounds like a rainy day smells. I listened to Miles' Davis Kind of Blue while writing this but feel free to insert your own.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"How are you sending guards to the infirmary? Why do your friends ‘show people their place’? Why has everyone I met since I got to this hellhole been absolutely terrified of you?”_
> 
>  
> 
> This was supposed to be smut. It's now a lot of talking and then smut. I follow where the boys lead.

When Armie wakes it’s almost dark outside the narrow window at the top of the wall. He feels cold, rolls over, seeking Timmy’s warmth, and sees that Timmy’s now at his desk again, writing something in longhand on his stationery. When he hears Armie’s movements Timmy turns, smiles at him warmly, and crosses to the barred doors. He drags his pen along the bars in an almost musical way, and a few seconds later Officer Swardstrom appears at the door with two trays of food that are so warm they’re visibly steaming. “Thanks, Brian,” Timmy says, his voice low, and the sincerity and feeling in it give Armie very inconvenient stirrings below the waist.

 

Timmy places a tray on each desk and starts to cut his steak into thin slices.  _ Steak? _ Their breakfast would have been called oatmeal only generously, and now there’s  _ steak? _ And knives sharp enough to cut it with, casually handed to someone in the habit of putting guards in the infirmary?

 

Armie takes his seat gingerly, slices his steak (a little thicker than Timmy’s, not like he’s really paying  _ close _ attention or anything), notices there’s even a little cup of  _ au jus _ for him to dip it in if he likes. The mashed potatoes on the side are creamy and clearly not instant. He cleans his plate in what feels like seconds and leans back, hand on his stomach. “I needed that,” he chuckles.

 

“Good.” Timmy smiles, dips a forkful of potatoes into his  _ jus _ . “Glad you’re feeling better.”

 

“I still don’t get it, Timmy. Why me? Why are you being this nice to me?”

 

“Because you’re here for loving someone. Just like I am. Everyone else is here because of what they hate. Or even worse, what they fear. I guess I just...wanna protect that in you, somehow?”

 

Armie inhales deeply. The question is there, in his chest, and he’s tempted to blame the steak, except the feeling started the minute he stepped onto Timmy’s carpeted floor. “Timmy, I...if you wanna protect things, and god knows you’ve been nicer to me than I ever dreamed, but--if that’s really the case, why do you have nicknames? How are you sending guards to the infirmary? Why do your friends ‘show people their place’? Why has everyone I met since I got to this hellhole been  _ absolutely terrified _ of you?”

 

When Armie glances over, Timmy’s staring down at his slices of steak. He glances behind him once, twice, to make sure that no one is passing the cell or accidentally within earshot. Then he begins speaking so softly that Armie abandons his dinner, scoots his chair closer to Timmy’s. Later, he will suspect Timmy did this on purpose.

 

“I mean, look at me, Armie. I know what people in here think when they see me. I’m pretty and thin and I can’t defend myself. That’s definitely what someone thought the first night I was here. I was put in a cell with some giant guy whose name I’ve blocked out. I came into the cell so scared you could hear my knees shaking, just like you.” Armie opens his mouth to defend himself and Timmy holds a finger up to Armie’s lips for silence. Armie likes the feeling, has to stop himself from moving his lips against Timmy’s finger in a kiss. “It’s fine. I’ve got you now.” The urge to kiss Timmy’s finger transforms into an insistent throbbing at Armie’s groin. He tries to ignore it.

 

“So this huge guy sizes me up. Tells me I’m taking the top bunk. But, and then he fucking  _ giggled _ ,” Timmy winces at the memory and Armie can’t help it: he reaches out and puts his hand reassuringly on Timmy’s knee. Timmy doesn’t seem to mind or even to  _ notice _ ; he’s that absorbed in his story. “He giggled, and told me my room wasn’t ready yet. I mean, the bed was clearly empty but...he backed me into a corner, holding all my clothes, and told me to stay there till the morning. Said ‘housekeeping would be in overnight and have my room ready tomorrow’. So I stood there all afternoon while he worked out, read a magazine, played solitaire with some commissary playing cards. If I moved or tried to lean against the wall he’d be across the room in a second, faster than you’d think a guy that big could move. He’d grab my arm or the side of my neck, every time hard enough to bruise, and tell me if I didn’t do what he said then I wasn’t sleeping in my bed the next night either.” As Timmy recalls the story, he reaches down to trace his fingers absently along the back of Armie’s hand, where it rests on his knee. Armie doesn’t know if Timmy realizes he’s doing it, but doesn’t point it out since that might make Timmy stop.

 

“It was the longest night of my entire life. I was afraid to move even while he slept in case he woke up right then and saw me. That little bundle of clothes started to feel like it weighed a hundred pounds. I was sweating, swaying on my feet. My knees were killing me. But the whole time I was watching him sleep with the calm of those who have no conscience, I was  _ thinking _ . And when he woke up in the morning and gave me a smart-ass grin with three missing teeth, I gave him my most flirtatious smile. Because I had a  _ plan _ .

 

“I knew as soon as my cellie grabbed my neck for the first time that I was never gonna get anywhere here by physical strength. I had to be  _ smarter _ . So the first thing I did at breakfast the next morning was find all the guys sitting alone. Guys who had probably been strong-armed and bullied and thought no one else in this place was like them. And I spent every meal that day talking to those guys, being the person they’d been waiting to talk to. Will was thrilled that someone else on the block had seen  _ Babette’s Feast _ . Stephane finally had someone to speak French with. And Giullian had been spending his exercise hour in the prison library, the only time he could stream some Cigarettes After Sex songs to listen to without anyone else in the room bothering him. I offered to keep him company.

 

“Pretty soon they all started opening up to me, telling me their secrets. Like Will having years of taekwondo lessons in New York before he got locked up. Giullian knowing all kinds of stuff about cooking that my years of nuking frozen meals had never taught me. So when some asshole threatened me in the yard and  _ Will _ of all people came up behind him, grabbed his neck in just the right place, forced him down without throwing a punch? The so-called tough guys stayed away from us after that, because if nerdy quiet Will could do  _ that _ who knew what else he had in him? No one wanted to test it. And when the guards got greedy, tossed everyone’s cells and took stuff that I knew people had paid for fair and square from commissary, just so their paperwork would make them look busy? Giullian took cleaning duty, slipped a little powdered laxative into the water cooler in the guards’ lounge. The three thirstiest guards got a little dehydrated, went to the infirmary, nothing an afternoon on a saline drip didn’t fix. They call it Bloody Sunday because with three guards gone they thought we’d riot, but nothing happened. That’s when everybody started calling me Lil Timmy. The normal rules say they’d call me Big Timmy when I became the boss on the block. Admitting I’m little is supposed to be a sign of even more respect.” Timmy huffs out a huge breath and his shoulders sag now that they story is out. “Or so they tell me.” He grips Armie’s hand forcefully and chuckles.

 

Armie waits a beat to make sure Timmy is done speaking. “That’s--no,  _ you’re _ amazing. I don’t know how you found me here, or why you decided you liked me but--”

 

“Random luck of the universe I guess,” Timmy grins, releasing Armie’s hand. The chill prison air on the skin Timmy had just touched feels even cooler than Armie expected. “Your steak’s getting cold.” Timmy’s right, the steak is room temperature or less, but it’s still the best thing Armie’s tasted since he got to this place. He inhales it in what feels like seconds, which is a good thing since Swardstrom turns up at the cell a few moments later demanding their trays, hissing to Timmy that this was a special occasion and not to expect it again. Swardstrom’s grinning by the time he walks away, though, and Armie swears he heard something about  _ work detail _ mentioned.

 

He tries to bring it up after the lights have gone out for the evening. Timmy finishes writing something with his fountain pen, snaps out the desk lamp, and goes to his own side of the room, his own bed. Armie tries to ignore the twinge of disappointment. “What was that about the work detail?” Armie whispers into the dark room, watching the single line of moonlight from the window creep its way across the floor. 

 

The sliver of moonlight is interrupted by something darting across its path; then Timmy’s voice is at Armie’s ear, his breath hot on Armie’s neck, and goosebumps rise on every inch of Armie’s skin. “You’ll find out tomorrow,” Timmy whispers. “But nothing to worry about.” He drops a kiss onto Armie’s forehead, but when Armie turns toward the sensation he finds nothing, only another ripple in the moonlight as Timmy crosses back to his own bed. 

 

Armie listens to Timmy breathe in the dark for what feels like hours before he finally falls asleep.

 

The next morning their walk to the cafeteria is substantially calmer than the day before. Armie knows where he’s going, and while he’s still a bit unnerved by the mask that falls over Timmy’s face when he steps out of the cell, he understands more now why it’s there. Feels a little special, even, that he seems to be the only one allowed to see behind it. At the breakfast table the food seems to have a little more flavor, and Armie puts it down to the glances of familiarity he gets from Timmy’s friends. When Timmy puts his hand on Armie’s knee under the table, a gesture of risky tenderness that belies the cold and businesslike expression Timmy has fixed on Will, the lumpy oatmeal begins to taste like strawberries and cream.

 

This time when the guards blow their whistles, everyone shuffles into small groups against the outside walls of the cafeteria. “Work detail, just stick with me,” Timmy whispers. Sure enough, their small group of Timmy and his friends are led to the far corner of the prison yard, where a small greenhouse sits surrounded by a plot of sprouts and struggling vegetables. “Armie’s gonna be in there with me today,” Timmy says, inclining his head toward the greenhouse, “if you wanna just make sure everything out here looks good, take care of the weeds and watering.” Will, Stephane, and Giullian nod in agreement and 

 

The sun bursts from behind the clouds as Timmy opens the door to the greenhouse. Armie inhales the minute he steps inside and smells  _ life _ for the first time since he walked through the metal prison doors. Rows of flowers in riotous colors burst from tables lining the walls. Vines and ferns hang in pots that dangle from the ceiling. The air is humid, full of oxygen. The moisture makes Timmy’s eyes shine even more brightly when Armie turns to meet them.

 

Timmy draws aside the patterned fabric that hangs from the tables lining each wall. Armie had assumed it was there to hide extra flowerpots, maybe a shovel or two. Instead dried flowers hang from the underside of the table, making a fragrant ceiling that hits Armie’s nose sharply as Timmy draws the curtain aside. There’s a makeshift bed on the floor, made of seed bags sewn together and stuffed by hand, but carefully, in a way that looks cozy rather than careless. The light through the glass of the greenhouse walls throws rainbows onto the soft surface.

 

Armie thinks he must be dreaming. And when Timmy crouches down, stretches himself out full length under the table, and pats the space beside him for Armie to join him, Armie knows this can’t be real.  _ Can it? _

 

“This is my spot,” Timmy murmurs, beckoning to Armie again as his eyes fall shut.

 

Armie stretches out beside Timmy, the cloth falling shut behind them so that for a moment he can pretend they’re really alone. The bedding rustles as Armie settles into it, and without opening his eyes Timmy murmurs, “I stuffed it with cotton and dried flowers from the greenhouse.” There’s a pause as Armie settles in, his arm ending up pressed fully against Timmy’s, hands touching. Timmy doesn’t move away. “I’ve--I’ve never shown anyone this before.”

 

Armie turns to look at Timmy, a beam of sunlight slanting just so over his chest and face, and suddenly he can’t breathe, and the only air that can save him is in Timmy’s lungs. He leans over, aiming for quiet but clearly missing because the last thing he sees is Timmy’s mouth quirk up in an anticipatory smile before Armie presses his lips to Timmy’s.

 

He’s not prepared for how quickly Timmy responds. Their kiss is chaste for a moment, all sensation, the petal softness of Timmy’s lips and the rough pull of the burlap mattress against Armie’s skin. Timmy sighs  _ oh, fuck, yes  _ against Armie’s lips and rolls onto his side to press full length against Armie. Suddenly the two of them pressed together are the axis Armie’s world is spinning around. When he opens his eyes he’s surprised to see the greenhouse still standing around them. The rest of his field of vision is taken up by chestnut-dark curls and an expanse of sun-dappled, freckled skin as Timmy leans into him. When Armie feels how hard Timmy is against him already, before they’ve even really touched, he lets out a gasp that pulls a breath from Timmy’s lungs into his own.

 

Timmy pulls back, breathless, pushing his hair out of his eyes and holding Armie’s gaze as he fumbles at the buttons of his shirt, the zipper of his canvas work pants. There’s a hint of a question in his eyes, and Armie answers it by quickly removing his own clothes, shoving the whole pile of worn canvas away with his feet in a hurry to feel Timmy’s entire body against his own. When he reaches for their hands, entwines them, they both chuckle at how both of Timmy’s palms would fit into one of Armie’s. 

 

For someone so comfortable with power, Timmy goes pliant for Armie with surprising speed. When Armie presses into Timmy’s palms, pushes at his hands, he falls onto his back almost immediately and lifts only his head to press his lips again to Armie’s. When Armie drops his head to pepper kisses along Timmy’s neck he throws his head back in silence, the rustle of the bedding under them the only sound. Armie’s bare shoulders slide down Timmy’s ribcage as he kisses his way down Timmy’s chest, and when his breath hits Timmy’s hard cock Timmy inhales and holds the breath until his thighs quiver.

 

Armie lowers his mouth to swipe his tongue a single time from the base of Timmy’s cock to the tip, and when Timmy still hasn’t breathed out Armie whispers it to him,  _ breathe, baby _ , and Timmy’s exhale comes as a breathy laugh that dips his dick into the precome that had pooled on his stomach. Timmy reaches down, swiping his hand through the puddle on his stomach, and grips Armie’s cock, drawing Armie’s own precome out with firm strokes. Timmy brings his other hand to his mouth, pumps two fingers rapidly in and out, darting his tongue out and around them in circles, and when Armie realizes why he’s doing this his dick twitches in Timmy’s hand in the same rhythm.

 

Timmy offers his hand to Armie, pushes the two fingers into Armie’s mouth, and he draws a figure eight around them with his tongue. Timmy moans, pulls his fingers away quickly, and tips his hips up to reach his entrance. He thrusts one finger in, drawing it in and out of himself at the same tempo as his hand on Armie’s cock, then quickly adds a second. After only a couple of thrusts he’s panting at Armie  _ want to feel you. want you inside _ , and he withdraws his fingers, releases Armie’s cock, and shifts his hips so the tip of Armie’s dick is lined up with his entrance. With every breath Timmy murmurs  _ please, please _ . 

 

Armie draws a shuddering breath that drags the head of his cock against Timmy’s tight ring of muscle; he pushes Timmy’s knees back toward his chest, braces himself on them, and presses the head of his cock inside Timmy. Timmy whines, pressing against Armie as Armie leans forward, breathing deeply now to relax his muscle--until suddenly, in a smooth single motion like a swallow, like a gasp, Armie’s fully inside, can feel Timmy’s heartbeat in the twitch of his rim against the base of Armie’s cock, and although they had both been frantic, scrabbling, a second earlier, now that they are fully connected they both freeze as if afraid that the moment once shattered will never return.

“Timmy,” Armie breathes, leaning over to tangle his hand into Timmy’s curls. It’s like reaching into a painting, the sunlight dappling Timmy’s chest, his eyes closed, motionless, face frozen in sheer pleasure. Without opening his eyes Timmy grins wordlessly and begins to rock his hips against Armie. “Fuck, oh, fuck, that feels good--” Now it’s Armie whose eyes flutter shut as his cock brushes back and forth inside Timmy, Timmy taking all of him in a way few men can, definitely not on the first try, and for a moment he fights the thought that  _ we were meant for this, we fit together that perfectly  _ but then he just gives in to it, to the sensation of Timmy's muscles milking his cock. 

 

“Kiss me?” It's the one thing Timmy could have said that would have made Armie's eyes fly open anyway, but the  _ question  _ in it, the  _ uncertainty  _ make Armie realize he could never deny this man anything, much less something Armie already wants anyway. He whispers  _ yes yes of course  _ as he bends to Timmy's mouth, capturing the lips that already feel like they belong only to him. Timmy’s tongue tastes like the hibiscus that’s growing thick and tangled in the pots above them.

 

Once Armie’s flattened himself over TImmy he savors the drag of Timmy’s balls against the tender skin of his stomach, the moisture that leaks from Timmy’s cock and seals their bodies together. Armie slips his hand between them, grasps Timmy’s cock and moves it with the same slow, tentative pace with which Timmy’s tongue is currently exploring Armie’s mouth. Timmy whimpers at the slow pace until he realizes he’s in control, then pushes his mouth against Armie’s faster, more insistently, until Armie’s cock, Timmy’s tongue, and Armie’s hand all find the same rhythm, three wavelengths collapsing into one. It’s like the moment when the entire orchestra finally tunes to the same note. Neither of them even has time to stutter a warning before the orgasm hits. Armie starts to cry out; when Timmy’s hand shoots out to stop him Armie takes one of Timmy’s slender fingers between his teeth, biting into it with lip-covered teeth to stay quiet. Timmy himself wordlessly mouths  _ fuck fuck fuck _ as his come pulses over Armie’s hand onto his chest. 

 

Armie’s cock is still twitching between his legs when he slides out of Timmy, prompting a confused moan from Timmy at the sudden emptiness. Armie slides down, bending his head to Timmy’s chest, and laps Timmy’s come into his mouth. For his part Timmy grabs Armie’s hand, washing Armie’s fingers with his tongue, and when they’re both clean Armie collapses onto Timmy’s shoulder, gasping out little giggles that come out more like sighs.

  
“ _ Fuck _ , Armie. If I’d known you’d be that good I wouldn’t even have waited a day.” Armie can hear the grin in Timmy’s voice. Timmy slaps Armie’s ass lightly, playfully. “Now get dressed and help me weed the herb garden up there. If we don’t get  _ something _ done in here today even I won’t be able to keep the guards off our backs.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Armie, I’m getting paroled.” He says it all in a swooping breath so that Armie has to lean close to catch the final syllable._
> 
> _An ice pick slides down Armie’s spine._
> 
> _“When?”_
> 
> _“Next week."_
> 
> Whoops, this one got just a little angsty. We're in for a happy ending next chapter, though.

The next few months pass in blinks, like the ones that brought Armie to this place, but more pleasurable. Longer, as if he’s learned to like keeping his eyes open.

 

The softball game goes off without a hitch. Giullian coaches one team and Ansel the other. When he and Timmy are both replaced in the lineup after the seventh inning, Armie can’t say he’s surprised. They spend the next two innings in the shower, Timmy on his knees, lips around Armie’s cock, moaning words that come out only as vowels. Armie brushes wet curls from Timmy’s eyes, comes down his throat as Timmy strokes himself to completion and watches their release swirl away down the drain. They exit the locker room to find they’ve won the game.

 

Armie’s assigned to work detail in the greenhouse permanently, which somehow doesn’t surprise him either. He and Timmy continue to tend to everything inside the greenhouse while the rest of their crew handles the outside. Timmy’s tough facade drops more and more each day as soon as the door closes and it’s just them and his plants. He explains to Armie why he likes his favorites, how plants invented pollen and manipulated bees, a way to connect to each other even though they can’t move. And sometimes they just sit in Timmy’s spot under the table and talk. And do more than talk. That’s where they are the first time Armie rolls them over mid-kiss, their clothes already discarded outside, and wordlessly presses Timmy’s cock against his entrance. Timmy’s eyes ask  _ are you sure _ but his mouth says  _ oh fuck, yes. _ After Timmy comes inside him for the first time he bends to scatter kisses along Armie’s collarbone, lean his forehead against Armie’s, eyes closed while he catches his breath, while his cock softens inside Armie’s body.

 

Once, and only once, does Armie see the fire and steel that make everyone else so terrified of Timmy. There’s a fight one day in the cafeteria, a tough inmate who had just transferred from a higher security prison taking out his life’s frustrations on a scared newcomer who’d been there only a few hours. Neither of them there long enough to know how Timmy ran things. The guards break up the fight pretty quickly but all the cells are tossed afterward to remind everyone who’s in charge. Officer Swardstrom pockets Timmy’s cell phone instead of tossing it in the bag with everything else he’s confiscating, and Armie isn’t that surprised when he comes back around an hour later and passes it back to Timmy, along with a small plastic bag that makes unidentifiable rattling noises.

 

Armie cocks his head toward the bag. Timmy chuckles. “It’s anything contraband they found in that new bully’s cell. Looks like,” he peers inside, “a couple of boxes of candy, an mp3 player, and a copy of  _ The Art of War _ . It’s not much, but I’m gonna give it to that new kid when he gets out of the infirmary. He should be fine by tomorrow, but Swardstrom...exaggerated on the paperwork so that asshole will get sent back to where he came from and maybe even extend his stay.” Timmy puts the bag into a desk drawer and teasingly pushes Armie backward onto the bed, crawling into his lap. “To make up for pretending to take my phone, Swardstrom says this cell is gonna magically get skipped on the rounds tonight.”

 

That turns out to mean that Timmy can trail his tongue along Armie’s sternum, plant feather-light kisses along his ribs, bat Armie’s hand away when he tries to touch himself. “Not tonight. Tonight we have  _ time _ .” There’s what feels like an hour of slow kisses, whisper-soft touch, and even when Timmy finally,  _ finally _ , puts his hands on Armie it’s languid. A hand twirling slowly around the base of Armie’s cock. Timmy taking Armie in his mouth, all the way to the base in one fluid movement, then just as quickly pulling off, leaving Armie’s dick twitching with need in the chill air. And when Timmy lowers himself onto Armie to ride him, back arched like a contented cat, Armie’s watching so intently that his own orgasm takes him by surprise. He wraps one hand around Timmy’s thigh, gripping until he feels skin beneath his fingernails, and with the other pumps Timmy’s cock until he’s coming too, squeezing the last of Armie’s orgasm out of him, chest heaving as he catches his breath. When Timmy eases himself into bed beside Armie he tongues at Armie’s hand, licking off all his cum and then lacing their fingers together as they both fall asleep.

 

Then one morning Timmy isn’t at the table at breakfast. He left the cell with Armie but somewhere in the shuffle to the cafeteria he must have gone off in another direction. Armie’s perplexed but makes small talk with Stephane, Will, and Giullian. None of them seem worried, so Armie figures it must be OK. But they do seem to be even nicer to him than usual, almost over the top. Armie wouldn’t want three extra servings of toast every day, but it’s a nice perk just this once. A consolation for something he’s starting to suspect, but really doesn’t want to hear.

 

When he returns to the cell Timmy is already there, back to the door, standing with his head tilted toward the single high window. He doesn’t move when Armie enters, and even when Armie sidles up behind him, wraps Timmy whole in his long arms, Timmy only sighs, leans his head back against Armie’s chest with his eyes closed. His breathing is oddly regular.

 

“Armie, I’m getting paroled.” He says it all in a swooping breath so that Armie has to lean close to catch the final syllable.

 

An ice pick slides down Armie’s spine.

 

“When?”

 

“Next week. My sentence was 18 months, but the prisons are crowded and my paperwork shows a bunch of good behavior, some of which even actually happened.”

 

“What--” Armie almost can’t bring himself to ask the question. “What does that mean for us?”

 

Timmy finally turns to face Armie, opens his eyes, lets Armie sink into those mossy pools that he’s yet to find the bottom of. “What do you want it to mean?” he whispers.

Armie takes a deep breath. Being honest hadn’t always gotten him to where he wanted to be on the outside, but the best rule with Timmy was to do exactly the opposite of what you did with everyone else. “I want it to mean yours is the first face I see when I’m free again.” Armie sucks in a deep breath; just admitting that out loud has made him dizzy.

 

Timmy’s face dissolves into sunlight. He rises on tiptoes to plant a kiss on Armie’s lips in between each of his next words. “That’s. What. I. Hoped. You’d Say.”

 

On Timmy’s last day in the prison there’s a tiny unsanctioned going-away party for him in the cafeteria. At the usual dinner time there’s a banner strung up on the wall with “Good Luck Timmy” written on it in shoe polish that bears the fingerprints of all Timmy’s closest friends. Instead of the usual prison slop someone has ordered pizza, and when Timmy goes back for seconds and Swardstrom winks at him, Armie knows how it got there. 

 

In their cell after dinner, it suddenly feels like their first night all over again. Every touch feels weighted; Armie reaches to tousle Timmy’s curls but they feel further away than they look, as if he’s already remembering this moment from years in the future, willing his present self to make it last. Finally they just curl up on Timmy’s bed, every inch of chest and leg and chin pressed together, hoping to indent themselves on each other’s body, insurance against forgetting. When Armie runs his hand along Timmy’s spine, starts to slip a few fingers into Timmy’s waistband, Timmy wriggles away. “Not yet, wait till lights out.” Armie’s stunned, tries not to let it tip into hurt, at the idea that Timmy might not want them to be as close as possible for as long as possible before he goes.

 

At lights out he finds out why. The room goes dark and he hears the footsteps of Officer Swardstrom making rounds. He’s still pressed against Timmy on the bed, forehead to forehead, so he doesn’t see Swardstrom pass but breathes a sigh of relief that he’s not told to get back into his own bed. The footsteps doppler away down the hall and then turn back, and an unfamiliar metallic clink and shuffle comes from their cell door. Swardstrom’s footsteps disappear again.

 

Timmy leaps out of the bed, an expression on his face that Armie’s only seen before when Timmy’s concentrating very much on coaxing the perfect bloom from his birds of paradise. A tiny envelope has been slid under the cell door, into the room. Timmy slides his pinky under the flap, tears it open, and lets a single small key fall into his hand. He extends the other hand to Armie, leads him to the cell door, and pushes.

 

It’s unlocked.

 

“Come on,” Timmy whispers. He leads Armie toward an exit door at the end of the cell block. A guard Armie has never seen before is waiting by it, and she swipes a badge and pushes it open for them.

 

Armie hasn’t been outside after dark in almost a year. The air smells of sleep, of everything nocturnal replenishing itself, of trees silently breathing down on them. When he looks at the stars each one seems of a different brightness. Timmy’s tugging his hand, leading him across the playing field, past the greenhouse, to a tiny cabin in the furthest corner of the prison yard. Armie’s seen it before, he’d have to, it’s not like the yard is that big, but the structure is so bleached and weathered it’s always seemed like a part of the scenery. And it’s always been secured with a thick metal bar bearing a shiny padlock.

 

Armie watches Timmy fit the key from the envelope into the padlock and open the cabin door. He tries and fails to be surprised by this.

 

As soon as they’re through the door Timmy turns and pounces on Armie, pressing him up against the door, lips and tongue pressing insistently against his now. “Wait, wait, wait,” Armie mutters, this time being the one to press the brake. “What is this place? What are we doing here?”

 

“Warden’s cabin, back when the place was first built. Now, of course, there’s a nice four-bedroom house in town for whoever takes the job. But they don’t tear this one down in case it’s needed for storage. Or to hide in if there’s a riot. Or for...other things.” Timmy’s hands slink down to cup Armie’s ass. “Swardstrom gave us his key for the next twelve hours. The guards will say we were in our beds all night.”

 

There’s a kitchen, halfway stocked with a few cans of soup and brittle pasta. Behind the fridge Timmy finds a dusty bottle of wine, makes a joke about how the aging had to be good for it, right? There’s no corkscrew but Timmy manages with some hardware he finds under the sink. They drink from tumbler glasses, sitting on the counter, knocking their feet together.

 

There’s a shower with a full sized bathtub. Armie can’t remember when he last washed without a bunch of strangers in the room. They turn the hot water all the way up, hold each other under the spray until they’re pink and shivering. Run a warm bath, sit facing each other, finish the wine while playing “never have I ever”. Armie wins. When Timmy goes to climb out of the tub Armie presses him against the tile, sucks him till he’s hard and whimpering, pulls away with a mischievous grin, whispers  _ not yet _ . 

 

There’s a king sized bed. They take turns flopping on it, limbs askew, stretching out from corner to corner, before Timmy staggers to his feet only to be pinned back down on the bed as Armie tackles him. Timmy fights back but Armie’s expecting it, expecting the feints and fake-outs that a skinny smart guy always fights with. Their bodies clash in ways they haven’t been allowed to before, a hint of aggression that would have set off the guards, knees bumping into one another, wrists twisting in a tight grip, panting short kisses into each other’s mouths and pulling away. Armie’s got Timmy pinned below him, both wrists gripped in one of Armie’s broad palms, Timmy clawing at him with his fingernails, when Timmy’s shirt twists against the bed and rides up past his ribs.  _ I’d like to rip that right off of him _ , Armie thinks, unbidden, and then realizes after tonight Timmy won’t even need his drab prison shirt, that it might as well go out in style, and he grabs Timmy’s collar with his free hand and just  _ pulls _ . The shirt crumples away in his grip. Timmy stops scrabbling at Armie’s hands, looks at him with something that starts as surprise and very, very quickly veers to desire. The bones of Timmy’s hands melt away in Armie’s grip as he nibbles his lower lip.

 

“Fuck, just--fuck me,  _ please _ .” Timmy grinds his hips against Armie, brushing the heads of their cocks together, and that’s it. Armie’s own shirt comes off even faster than Timmy’s, likewise their boxers and the pants they’d never even bothered to button correctly after their bath. The moon throws a grid of light onto Timmy’s stomach through the windowpanes and Armie traces it with his tongue, Timmy’s hands ruffling the short hair at the nape of his neck. When Armie shuffles down the bed toward Timmy’s cock, Timmy moans in anticipation but moments later whines in confusion as Armie’s hands pry his legs apart and Armie’s head dips lower, lower, until it’s flush against the duvet.

 

Armie catches Timmy’s eye, cocks an eyebrow to make sure it’s okay. This is something they’ve never tried, something space and time haven’t allowed for, but Timmy’s heels scrape at the bed as he nods, tilting his hips to offer assistance. Armie circles the slender ring of Timmy’s muscle with his tongue, pushing just inside and twisting his head to grind his lips along the rim. Timmy’s whimpers rise to a loud, clear moan, and suddenly it’s clear just how vocal a lover he is when there are no neighbors around to hear them.

 

“Mmmmm, ohfuckyeah, right there, oh god, Armie, I just want you inside me,” Timmy babbles, followed by something in...French? Armie didn’t even know Timmy spoke French. He swipes precome from the head of Timmy’s dick, mixes it with what’s already leaking from his own, lines up his head at Timmy’s spit-slick entrance. “I wanna feel you…” Timmy traces a hand from his stomach, lingering on his heart, stopping at his throat, “ _ here _ .”

 

So Armie reaches for Timmy’s feet, puts them on his own shoulders, lifting Timmy’s hips off the bed, another thing they’ve never been able to try for lack of space and time. He peppers Timmy’s ankles and calves with kisses, caresses his rim one final time with a curious finger, before driving into Timmy in a single thrust, a single breath, and for a moment time stops and the two of them have only ever been there, in the moonlight, more connected through mind and body than ever before. Then Armie circles his hips, Timmy’s legs tremble against his shoulders, and Armie has to focus on his dick because if he doesn’t he might cry.

 

He takes it slow, barely thrusting at all at first, memorizing the feel of Timmy around him,  _ everywhere _ . He tries not to think of how long it might be until he feels this again. Then Timmy takes control, tilts his hips back a couple of inches and then forward again, exposing a couple of inches of Armie’s cock to the cold night air and then back to Timmy’s wet heat, and Armie doesn’t think in words at all after that. Timmy slides his legs from Armie’s shoulders to his sides, bracketing Armie with his knees, and pulls him in close for a kiss that’s slow, exploratory, as if Timmy’s trying to memorize things too. Armie’s hand fumbles between them for Timmy’s cock and when Timmy reaches down to help, they end up with their hands entwined, bringing Timmy off together. He comes first, with a soft yelp and stuttered breath, throwing his head back with his mouth a silent O. Feeling Timmy pulse around him pushes Armie over the edge as he collapses, panting, on Timmy’s chest. He kisses the spot over Timmy’s heart and then before his conscious mind has even awakened he starts to say, “I--” before he realizes these moments are heavy enough already. He doesn’t need to weigh them further with what he realized months ago when Timmy saved him from Ansel, what he might have already known as soon as he heard Timmy’s name.

 

“You what, silly?” Timmy’s voice is soft and raw.

 

“I’m going to miss that,” Armie sighs, and that’s as much of the truth as he can manage.

 

There’s a couch, and a tiny vacuum-tube television. They clean up and try turning it on, and amazingly the local networks come through. It’s the middle of the night and the shows are local public access, surreal and pointless yet somehow comforting. They curl up under a blanket on the couch, Timmy spooned up full length in Armie’s embrace. He’s snoring softly after an hour. Armie doesn’t sleep at all, just thinks to himself with every passing second  _ remember this. now this one. now this. now. _ He tries not to think of a world where they could do this anytime, where this could just be a Tuesday night instead of their last night, a routine instead of a gift.

 

As the first rays of dawn break through the windows Armie kisses the top of Timmy’s head, and this time he does say it,  _ I love you _ , before waking Timmy to return to their cell.

 

It doesn’t take Timmy long to pack, of course. Armie tries to distract himself by writing a couple of postcards but afterward he barely knows what he’s written. When Swardstrom comes to the cell door it almost looks as if  _ he’s _ been crying recently too. Not caring who sees them now, Timmy holds Armie in an embrace in the middle of the room for several minutes before Swardstrom clears his throat, murmurs quietly, “it’s time.”

 

“I’ll be here the minute you get out. I promise.” Armie tries to believe him, tries not to think of how many times the walls around them must have heard these same words, how many times they must have turned out to be untrue.

 

When Timmy walks out of the cell Armie stands in the corner near his bed, the way Timmy once had to by force, but he’s doing it by choice, so he doesn’t run after him, kiss him in the cellblock hallway, and say  _ I don’t know how to be here without you, you’ve been gone ten seconds and it’s already like someone snuffed out the sun _ . He hears two doors clang shut in succession somewhere in the distance and knows Timmy’s really gone.

 

*****

 

Of course Timmy leaves the cell phone behind. Armie doesn’t think much about it at first as he spends the first few days on his back in bed, staring at the ceiling, missing Timmy’s breathing coming from the other side of the room. Eventually Swardstrom tells him they’ll have to put someone else in the cell with him and it turns out to be Giullian, getting back the cell he’d once been booted from to make room for Armie. When Armie cleans the room in preparation he finds the phone and charger rattling in Timmy’s desk drawer and quickly sweeps them into his own. The guards were more lenient on him than on everyone else, probably Timmy’s lingering influence, but Armie wasn’t going to press his luck. He charges the phone at night when no one sees and vows to use it only at night or in a locked bathroom stall.

 

The first time he powers it on is during lunch a couple of days later, when everyone is in the cafeteria and the bathrooms are deserted. It’s been so long since Armie has seen a cell phone that he can’t even think what he’d want to do with it at first. Then he cautiously opens the browser and searches Timmy’s name.

 

He’s seen all these pictures before, of course, since he read the stories when they happened, but it’s different now that he’s had Timmy inside him, had Timmy’s voice in his ear in the dark, could tell you nine different things that make Timmy’s legs quiver. He clicks on a news story about Timmy’s case and is confronted with a fullscreen image of Timmy’s mugshot, his eyes flinty, lip almost sneering, a Timmy that Armie hardly ever saw because this is a Timmy who didn’t get what he wanted, and Armie had never refused him anything.

 

It makes Armie hard in his pants instantly.

 

He holds his breath to make sure no one else is in the bathroom and then begins the quick, silent process of bringing himself off in this barely private setting. He’s mastered it by now, of course, but usually he’s imagining bodies, sweat, the taste of cum in his mouth. He’s pretty sure this is the first time he’s jacked off to just a picture of someone’s face, and his own memory. As soon as he gets to Timmy clenching around him in the moonlit cabin he’s spilling all over his hand, having to juggle the phone so that he can clean himself up properly without the guards getting a hint of what he’s been doing in here.

 

That night while Giullian sleeps Armie unlocks the phone again, his head under the blanket, the phone just a few inches from his nose. His initial plan is to look at Timmy’s mugshot again, maybe read up a little more on his story now that he knows Timmy personally, but his finger slips and he accidentally takes a photo, a squinting selfie that the camera helpfully shows him right away before it fades away, stored in some distant folder.

 

_ The camera _ . Armie taps around, finds the camera roll, looks for anything taken on the phone in the past year or so when it would have been in Timmy’s possession. Oddly enough there’s nothing, although there are photos from before that, Timmy and a girl who resembles him, goofing off at a barbecue.  _ A sister _ . There are photos of Timmy’s whole family, and a few of him kissing the boy Armie recognizes from the news stories, the boy Timmy did all this for. The boy who had, in some strange way, brought Armie and Timmy together.

 

As he backs out of the camera roll he notices a separate folder, apparently accessed recently.  _ Vacation Photos _ . Armie chuckles darkly. Unlikely, in this place. He taps the folder and suddenly there’s Timmy.  _ A lot _ of Timmy. Timmy in the dark under his blanket, hand in the waistband of his pants, Armie probably sleeping a few feet away. Timmy in the empty communal shower, hand on the wall behind him, legs open,  _ waiting _ . Timmy on all fours in their space under the greenhouse table, using the self timer, back arched, presenting himself in a way that makes Armie whine under his breath.

 

Armie takes the phone into the bathroom with him at lunch every day for two weeks straight.

 

Timmy’s friends still welcome Armie at the lunch table, and their greenhouse work detail is pleasant enough, but the days drag without Timmy. Giullian is a quiet but friendly cellmate and it helps to have another warm body in the room again, but it also reminds Armie that this cellmate won’t sneak into his bed at night, pressing a cold nose between Armie’s shoulder blades, or surprise him with contraband chocolate on his birthday. He writes Timmy a postcard once...well, he writes half a dozen but tosses them out.  _ You can’t tell him you love him in a postcard. Don’t write a thesis in tiny illegible letters on how much you miss laying your cheek in his lap.  _ Finally he judges one as acceptable to send. Timmy replies quickly.  _ Of course I’ll still be there to get you. My sister Pauline’s going to bring me. You’ll love her. Glad you found the photos, I hope they...helped. _ All it does is make him miss Timmy more.

 

Armie expects four more months without Timmy but can’t say he’s surprised when Swardstrom comes to the cell door one day while Giullian is out coaching his softball teams. He tells Armie he’s being released next week, two months early.

 

“Shouldn’t I--isn’t there a hearing? Are you serious?”

 

“Overcrowding. Plus all your work with the continuing education program here looked great to the board.”   
  


“My work with the what?”

 

Swardstrom winks and continues his patrol.

 

He hasn’t been gone for five minutes when there’s a buzzing in the cell, like a rogue insect. It takes Armie a moment to realize it’s the cell phone, receiving a message. This has never happened before and he almost drops the phone trying to unlock it and get to the correct app.

 

It’s an unknown number with a New York area code.

 

_ You can thank me for that later. Pauline and I will pick you up Tuesday at 9am. _

 

Armie’s still letting that sink in, that Timmy did this and did it  _ for him _ , that he’ll see and smell and hold Timmy again in less than a week, when the phone buzzes with one more text.

 

_ Love you too. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can verify that if you put your porn in a folder labeled "Vacation Pics", no one will ever find it.
> 
> dreamofhorses42 on Tumblr.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The air in the car is thick with something else Armie doesn’t recognize, until he realizes Timmy’s _nervous_. He’s never been around Armie without his buddies to back him up, guards whose kindness can be bought, a whole system Timmy had worked hard to make effortless. As Armie watches, Timmy’s lip quivers slightly in the morning sun. _He thinks I might have changed my mind._
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has taken this journey with me, your support and comments have kept me on track and mean the world.

The car isn’t there at 9am.

 

It’s there at 8:45. 

 

It pulls in while he’s filling out his exit paperwork, the only car in the lot on a day with no visiting hours. It’s a beat-up 90’s-model Buick, painted a deep maroon. All Armie can see is the silhouette of two heads in the front seat and his heart rate feels like it doubles. 

 

The clerk hands him back a zippered black bag of the clothes he was wearing when he’d reported for his sentence and nods toward a nearby changing room. Armie finds that his black chinos hang a bit looser on his waist, but the sleeves of his ivory sweater are filled out now with muscles he hadn’t had a year or so earlier. He squeezes his bicep experimentally, trying to imagine Timmy doing the same. They’ve only ever seen each other in boxy prison uniforms or nothing at all, and Armie twists a little in front of the mirror, wishing he’d had more choice in how he’ll look to Timmy when they touch freely for the first time. Also in the bag are Armie’s wallet and cell phone; he slips the wallet easily into his back pocket but leaves the cell phone behind a loose brick under the sink. Maybe someone else will find it, a lifeline to the outside. He slips Timmy’s phone into his front pocket instead.

 

When the heavy metal door slams shut behind him it feels almost more final than it did when it was locking him in. No matter what, there’s no bed guaranteed him at the end of the day, and people will be less amenable than Swardstrom to his particular charms (or Timmy’s, for that matter). His thoughts are interrupted by the slam of a car door, a small body whirling into his arms for a moment before pushing back to hold him at arm’s length.

 

“Nice to meet you,” Pauline says. “I’ve heard a lot about you, all of it good, before you ask. You better make my brother as happy as he says you do, or what I’ll do to you will land me in  _ there _ .” She tips her head toward the prison. “Now get in the back. I think he might be more excited about this than you are.”   
  


Sometime while Armie was changing clothes or signing the papers to get his watch back, Timmy must have climbed into the backseat, because he’s curled there now, against the far window, bouncing one leg in a nervous stutter against the door. He’s staring out the window, not looking at Armie until he’s thrown his tiny backpack into the front seat and climbed inside. The air in the car is thick with something else Armie doesn’t recognize, until he realizes Timmy’s  _ nervous _ . He’s never been around Armie without his buddies to back him up, guards whose kindness can be bought, a whole system Timmy had worked hard to make effortless. As Armie watches, Timmy’s lip quivers slightly in the morning sun.  _ He thinks I might have changed my mind. _

 

As soon as the thought comes Armie crushes it by enfolding all the parts of Timmy he can reach in a bruising bear hug. He runs his hands over the sleeves of Timmy’s flannel shirt, feeling Timmy’s muscles beneath something other than thick prison canvas. Timmy’s curls hover under his nose so he nuzzles into them, like he’s dreamed of for months, but what he doesn’t expect is the smell, crisp and bright like a wind running through honeysuckle, that prison shampoo could never have created. And at Armie’s first touch Timmy melts into him, leg no longer shaking, hands scrabbling from inside his shirtsleeves to fist against Armie’s back. He’s shaking, and Armie can’t tell if it’s from laughter or tears. When he pulls back to look at Armie full in the face it turns out to be a little of both.

 

“I like these,” Armie murmurs, winding a couple of Timmy’s curls around his fingers. “They grew.”

 

“I like these,” Timmy shoots back, running his hand over Armie’s bicep, brushing the heel of his hand against the muscle there. “I think they grew too.” He grins and the car seems to darken against his bright smile.

 

“Fuck, I missed you.” Armie only means to think it, doesn’t mean to say it aloud, but there it is.

 

“I worried. I thought you’d get hurt. I thought you’d wanna start over when you got out. I thought maybe--” There’s a flash of the old Timmy for a moment, the one who would withhold any information necessary to get what he wanted. But Armie watches this new Timmy set that aside, taking his hand and tracing patterns in his palm as he speaks. “I thought maybe you’d find somebody else.”

 

“Hey.” Armie tips Timmy’s chin up with two fingers. “You’re my Lil Timmy, got it? Here or inside or anywhere. I wanna try. I wanna make this work.”

 

“Sorry, he’s your what?” Pauline interjects from the front seat. Armie had forgotten she was there. “What did he call you, Timothée?” She pronounces the name with a flawless French accent.

 

“Nothing.” Timmy slinks down onto the bench seat, blushing. “Just drive.”

 

*****

 

It’s not easy at first, not at all. Anything that’s worth it never is.

They crash at Pauline’s at first; her guest bedroom quickly starts to feel even more cramped than their shared cell, and Armie knows this can’t last. He pokes around, finds a bakery that makes a point of hiring people with criminal records to give them a second chance. It’s just supposed to be a job, anything to bring in money, but turns out he’s got a knack for it. In three months he’s doing well enough to rent a place for himself and Timmy, and within a year he’s helping develop new products.

 

Timmy drifts. He takes job interviews, won’t give a straight answer when asked how they went. Once Armie sets them up with the apartment, even that dries up. Timmy’s phone lights up from time to time with strange numbers, possibly people following up on those opportunities, but Armie watches him ignore them. Without his carefully created hierarchy and rules he can exploit to get what he wants, Timmy’s lost.

 

Finally Armie comes home, for what feels like the twenty-fifth day in a row, to find Timmy absorbed in a video game, sunken into the Ikea couch that was just supposed to be a placeholder until they both had jobs and could afford something nicer.

 

“Timmy? You know you’re not fooling me, right?”

 

The shock with which Timmy meets this question is not at the question, but at his lack of success in hiding whatever’s bothering him. He balls up into the couch even more, setting the controller aside and pulling his sock feet against his thighs.

 

Armie sits beside him, strokes his hair a little roughly so there’s still an edge of play to it. “What’s up? What’s happened with all these interviews? Why aren’t you answering your phone?”

 

Timmy pulls in a breath so deep it pushes his knees away from his chest. “It’s just--when we first moved in with her Pauline asked me if I wanted a job on one of her films. Obviously she can hire whoever she wants, she’s the director after all, and her stuff has done so well no one would question her decision. Especially since I was gonna start out so low, learn the ropes, bring people coffee and see what other jobs I liked.” Timmy’s voice grows light and excited at this last prospect, despite his frustration.   
  
“Timmy.” Armie still has his hand in Timmy’s hair and now starts to twirl a soft curl around his finger. “I’m not hearing anything that remotely resembles a problem here.”

 

“Don’t you see, she only asked me because she feels sorry for me! I’m so sick of people’s expressions changing once they find out my past. I couldn’t take seeing that every day, plus people thinking I’m only there because I’m Pauline’s brother. She tried to say that wasn’t why she asked me, but I know that’s it.” His eyes flash both with indignation and anger at a dream receding. “And after that how exciting can it be to interview for entrance-level office work? You get it? She’s offering me exactly what I want for all the wrong reasons and I just couldn’t figure out where I wanted to go from there.”

Armie waits to make sure Timmy’s done speaking before he ventures in, slowly, as Timmy’s breathing returns to normal. “Timmy, you’ve known your sister your entire life.” Timmy rolls his eyes despite himself at the absurd obviousness of this. “Would she, now or ever, risk something she worked as hard for as her film career just because she  _ pitied someone _ ? Even if that someone was as charming and lovable as you?” He tugs Timmy’s curl a little, drawing Timmy’s gaze in his direction so their eyes can meet.

 

Timmy sighs. “No. No, I guess she wouldn’t.” He leans his head on Armie’s shoulder and is quiet for so long Armie starts to fear he’s fallen asleep.

 

“So...so you’re gonna text Pauline then? And tell her you’ve reconsidered?”

 

Timmy whines against Armie’s shoulder. “And tell my  _ sister _ I was  _ wrong _ about something?”

 

“Yes, silly.” Armie smiles fondly into Timmy’s hair. “Hey.” He tips Timmy’s chin up with his thumb until their eyes meet again. “There’s plenty to like about you even when you’re not scaring people into it. You know that, right?” There’s a flicker of uncertainty in Timmy’s eyes, quickly masked by the  _ desire _ to believe what Armie’s saying. “After all, I’m still here, aren’t I? And I’m not going anywhere.”

 

“Fiiine,” Timmy sighs in mock exasperation, digging his phone out of his pocket. He taps intently for a moment, tongue working its way out of the corner of his mouth. Finally he reads the text back. “P, is it too late to change my mind about the job? I appreciated your offer and didn’t know how to show it. Would love it if it’s still available. xo.” He peers at Armie for approval.

 

“Perfect.” Timmy presses send. “Now, I’ve had a long fucking day and I’m covered in flour. And I think you’ve been wearing the same hoodie for days. Race you to the shower.”

 

Armie has let Timmy win every race they’ve had inside their new apartment, and this time is no different. He’ll never let Timmy know this.

 

The shower is already on full blast when Armie reaches the bathroom, Timmy standing under the hot spray with his eyes closed. Armie undresses silently, dropping his clothes into a single pile in the corner of the room. His effort at sneaking into the shower equally quietly is thwarted by his head knocking against the curtain, and Timmy’s eyes fly open as he dissolves into giggles.

 

“C’mere you,” Armie growls with mock roughness, pulling Timmy toward him and turning him around so that he can massage soap into Timmy’s tense shoulders and back. At first Timmy sighs at the relief of tension, but as Armie’s hands work their way down his back Timmy presses into Armie, aligning their hips so that he feels Armie’s erection fill out against his lower back. When his hands reach Timmy’s hips Armie holds Timmy against him with one hand, reaching the other around to hold Timmy’s swelling cock. As Armie strokes him Timmy turns boneless in his arms, grinds against Armie in a way that makes Armie gasp. Once his hand starts to feel slick with precome as well as water, Armie spins Timmy around, sinks to his knees and takes him into the back of his throat in a single motion, and Timmy has to thread his fingers through Armie’s hair just to stay balanced.

 

“Fuck, mmmph, god I love your mouth, Armie,” Timmy sighs. Armie cups Timmy’s balls in his other hand, moves them forward and then back gently before using his hand to chase his mouth as he bobs up and down Timmy’s shaft. He begins turning his head slightly as he moves, dragging his tongue from the ridge that runs beneath Timmy’s cock to the neat dip that marks the head. When Timmy starts to join in, thrusting into Armie’s mouth and tightening his hands in Armie’s hair, Armie pulls off without warning and gets to his feet to press his own cock full-length against Timmy’s. He wraps one hand around them both, gripping through water and precome, and strokes until Timmy’s whimpering against him, pressing their foreheads together, muttering  _ fuckfuckfuck _ under his breath, and as soon as Timmy’s breath starts to stutter Armie’s right there with him, their cum dripping onto his hand and landing near Timmy’s navel. Armie reaches with his other hand to wipe it off. Before he can get his hands under the spray of the shower to clean them Timmy grabs both his hands, greedy, assertive, and brings Armie’s cum-covered fingers into his mouth one at a time, elegant fingers bracketing Armie’s wrists so he couldn’t move them away if he’d wanted to. Not that he’d want to, with Timmy staring at him from hooded eyes, cloudy from his orgasm, wet curls plastered to the side of his head.

 

“God, I fucking love you,” Armie whispers, as much to himself as to Timmy, and presses a kiss to the top of Timmy’s head. Suddenly the sex kitten disappears as quickly as it came and Timmy giggles, looks almost embarrassed, and splashes himself a final time with the spray before climbing out of the tub. Armie’s rinsing his hair, eyes closed, when the shower curtain rustles and a kiss is planted somewhere near his right hip.

 

“Love you too,” Timmy hisses, and then the bathroom door bangs closed behind him.

 

When Armie’s dried off and put on clean sweats he finds Timmy sprawled on the bed, head on a towel-covered pillow, wearing only navy sweatpants and snoring softly. Branches blowing past a streetlight outside paint a Jackson Pollock on his back. Armie smiles fondly and grabs a blanket that he knows can cover them both.

 

As he sits on the edge of the bed to unfold the blanket he sees Timmy’s phone light up on the nightstand. The text notification says “Pauline”, so Armie breaks his rule against checking other people’s phones. Just this once. 

 

_ Pauline: Good thing I love your stubbornness. Of course the job’s still yours. 6:00 call time on Monday, I’ll text you the address later. xoxo. P. _

 

A grin builds at the corners of Armie’s mouth and he rubs Timmy’s back aimlessly to make an outlet for this sudden burst of positive energy. He shakes the blanket over them, puts an arm around Timmy’s waist. Just like always, Timmy rolls over at the touch, pressing his back against Armie and spooning up close. Armie rubs his nose between Timmy’s shoulder blades. The smell there is fresh from the shower, their lavender soap, but also that smell that’s  _ Timmy _ underneath it all, that he smelled for the first time when Timmy had first taken off his prison uniform, that he could always make out even underneath their constellation of flowers in the greenhouse, and that he’d smelled in Pauline’s car the first time he’d been able to touch Timmy without worrying about who might see.

 

It smells like hope.

 

It smells like home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I based Armie's job on the real-life company Dave's Killer Bread. If your grocery store carries it, it's a great way to show support for people re-integrating into life after the penal system.


End file.
